Landscape Policy Partnerships: Brussels Workshop 'Landscape Solutions for Global Challenges'
The Centre for Landscape held a workshop in Brussels with international partners and representatives from the European Commission
6 June 2024
Landscape Policy Partnerships Workshop in Brussels, Landscape Solutions for Global Challenges
On Thursday 6th June, the Centre for Landscape hosted a workshop in Brussels on ‘Landscape Solutions for Global Challenges’. This was the first international workshop for the Landscape Policy Partnerships project as well as an information-sharing event for the TerraSAgE project.
The aim of the event was to showcase landscape research conducted by the Centre for Landscape and by European partners and collaborators, and to consider the ways that landscape research can inform and guide policy and practice. Presentations were made by Prof. Sam Turner on TerraSAGE, Prof. Maggie Roe and Dr Maria Duggan on SeaScapes/FoodScapes, Dr Francesco Carrer on PLAS-Pastoralism and landscape sustainability, as well as by Dr Niels Dabaut on the Flanders Landscape Characterisation, and Dr José Abellán Santisteban (University of Granada) on historic landscapes and water management in Spain. We were also joined by Dr Charlotte Veal, Eleanor Harrison and Dr Stelios Lekakis, as well as Edwin Raap from the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands.
We were extremely pleased to be joined by members of the European Commission (Noa Sainz Lopez, Policy Officer in the Bioeconomy and Food Systems Unit at the Healthy Planet Directorate of the Directorate-General Research & Innovation (DG RTD) to provide guidance on directing landscape research towards European policy makers. We were also very pleased that the day included a presentation from Michal Nekvasil of European Commission, Directorate General for Climate Action, on the Directorate’s current work to develop strategic policy/guidance for landscape resilience.
Our hope is that the event will help to foster new channels for connecting landscape research at Newcastle to policy. There was consensus among the attendees that landscape as a concept and approach has great potential to unite disciplines to work towards solutions for global challenges. The event also provided an opportunity to present the policy briefs being developed by Centre for Landscape Intern Eleanor Harrison. These will be the first documents to be added to our bank of scientific briefing notes (under development on our website).